


cocked to the right

by Red Dragon (Red_Dragonn)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Fear, Gen, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Paranoia, most of this is just shameless headcanons, not sure what else to tag this with its kinda a weird story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 19:58:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Dragonn/pseuds/Red%20Dragon
Summary: “What are you so afraid of?”





	cocked to the right

Megatron learned early on that one did not show fear. 

* * *

In the mines, on Messatine and on Tarn and everywhere else besides, the overseers would take any clear sign of fear as an admission of guilt. Any guilt. Half the time there wouldn’t even be a crime to go along with it; but Megatron learned that if he let his servos shake, he could expect a club to the head; if he let his eyes get wide or his voice to go high and thin, he’d get hit. 

And he learned. 

He learned to clench his fists, to keep them closed so no one would see them shake. He learned to hold his shoulders just so, so that they were stiff enough not to hunch in protectively. He learned to clench his teeth and bite the tip of his glossa until he could just barely taste energon, and then he’d be able to control his voice. He learned to lock up, to push the feeling down, to hide it.

Terminus knew when he was worried, of course—Terminus knew him better than any mech. He’d run a hand over Megatron’s wrist, never anything too obvious, because they’d _learned._ It would not do to be obvious in the depths of the mines. But Terminus would look at him, and he’d run a hand over his wrist just so, and he’d stay with Megatron until the overseer left, or until the footsteps faded away behind them. 

One day, Megatron thought to ask how he knew. 

“You lean to the right,” Terminus said. “The rest of it I can barely see, but you lean right when you’re shaken.”

“I do not,” Megatron scoffed, and stood up straighter. He _had_ had his head tilted to the right. He hadn’t realized that.

* * *

In the gladiator pits of Kaon, fear was tantamount to a surrender. The gladiators were not pleasant mechs to be around, even at the best of times. They were cruel without reason, harsh, sharp; Megatron wasn’t like them. His edges still had yet to be filed down enough before he could fit into this place. 

And he was afraid, because how could he not be?

If he got cornered in an alley, it didn’t matter how big he was, how strong he was; he needed to be in his best shape for the arena, and he couldn’t afford a fight he wasn’t being paid for. He bluffed. He grinned in their faces and clenched his fists and forced his shoulders back, and he clenched his teeth on the tip of his glossa and when he got hit in the face his dentae snapped together with such force that he bit the small pointed end of it off. 

And after that, he learned. 

_You don’t clench your jaw. You don’t bite your tongue. Not defensible. You don’t lock your joints. You look all relaxed. You grin and bear it. You cannot afford not to._

He still found himself tilting his head, now and again. Before the bad fights, the ones he wasn’t sure he’d win. They caught it on camera a few times—called it proof he was thinking about how to take down his enemies. It made Megatron almost want to laugh. 

Let them think what they wanted.

They didn’t see. 

And that was all that mattered. 

* * *

The Decepticons were a far harsher and more attentive audience than any of the Pit mechs. 

He had to be perfect. Had to be flawless. Had to come over utterly unafraid. 

It was not easy.

And yet, it seemed to work. Megatron didn’t hear anyone talking about him; he heard no rumors that he was weak. It had been a lng time since anyone had tried to rough him up in an alleyway or mug him for a couple shanix, but that was far from the only kind of altercation that ever happened, especially in a situation like this. 

And then he first heard the nickname.

“That’s our fearless leader,” hissed some Decepticon as Megatron walked past. He nearly dropped a datapad in surprise. It didn’t _sound_ like a genuine remark…

But the more time he spent around his troops, his people, the more he heard it. 

_“Megatron, our fearless leader.”_

And he wasn’t, not by a long shot. He was never fearless. Things were hard. Things were dark. Things weren’t getting better. He was more and more afraid every day. He held his shoulders down and his body relaxed, and if he had a tendency to tilt his head to the right, it didn’t matter. 

Time after time. He’d look down at a battle plan, and they’d be slagged, and it would be impossible odds that sent a chill down his backstruts. And he’d narrow his eyes, just a little, and he’d cock his head to the right—not that he’d ever notice in the moment, but he’d realize later, as he always did—and he’d look down and say, voice calm, body relaxed, hands steady, “we are going to lose this battle.”

Behind him, around him, mechs would whisper it for days. “ _Fearless_.” 

And he was Megatron; he had a duty to his Decepticons, to the war, to their ideals and the things they fought for, and so he’d take a minute to pull himself together and then he’d throw himself onto the battlefield, and he’d go fight, and his soldiers behind him would throw _their_ everything into it, too. And they made it through, over and over. Impossible odds, and they didn’t _win,_ because that would be too far—but projected losses were always a bit worse, when Megatron wasn’t there in the halls. 

When they weren’t whispering about how fearless he was behind his back.

When they didn’t have his example to light their darkness. 

It didn’t quite scrape under the radar. Soundwave knew, because Soundwave always knew. His mind betrayed what his body language would not. And so it didn’t take Megatron by surprise when, at one point, Ravage appeared behind him just before a fight and told him he would have backup, that he didn’t need to be afraid, and a weight fell off of his shoulders. When Rumble and Frenzy made snarky comments about how he had his gun on his right side, and drew confused looks from the rest of the team they were fighting alongside. 

Starscream knew something, after the first time he came close to killing Megatron, when Megatron gave him a blank look with his head canted slightly to the right and eyes just a bit narrower than usual, and Megatron could see it in the way he never seemed to rest when his other assassination attempts failed to elicit the same response. 

Shockwave, analytical as ever, put it together after he proposed a weapon that sent ice into Megatron’s spark for the third time in a row. This, too, Megatron had always expected somewhat.

But the majority of the Decepticons didn’t know. And the Autobots didn’t know, either. 

And that was what mattered.

* * *

The Autobots put Megatron on board the Lost Light, surrounded him with Autobots who hated him (not that there were really any Autobots who _didn’t_ , his processor reminded him snidely) and shipped him off into deep space where there would be no one to hear him scream. 

That’s not what they called it, of course. But what else could it possibly mean?

The Prime had called him a captain, but Megatron regarded that as little more than a dramatic farce. It probably looked good to the bots on Cybertron. But here, on the ship, coexisting with Rodimus, living alongside a crew of Autobots who hated him, he could see it for what it was: a lie. He was no more an authority here than he was a glitchmouse.

He was trapped. He was alone. He had no friends, no allies, nothing he could count on here. Only a quest he wasn’t sure he wanted to complete, a ship he didn’t understand, and two hundred odd Autobots with four million years’ worth of grudges.

He had access to his own medical files, of course, and about three days into the trip he found a footnote that suggested that ratchet thought his helm was crooked. Tipped to the right. The footnote indicated that Ratchet thought that this was a result of some kind of damage. Megatron found that somewhat amusing.

Ratchet never said anything about it to Megatron, though; and so Megatron never brought it up. 

He didn’t need anyone paying too much attention to that.

Three sessions in with Rung, the psychologist suggested that he might need glasses. “Your optics look tight, like you’ve been squinting,” he explained. “None of us will think worse of you if you use glasses. I do, too.”

Megatron shrugged. “That’s what my optics look like.”

Rung shrugged and dropped the subject.

None of the other Autobots noticed anything off, period. And Megatron might have been used to whispers dogging his footsteps, but not these ones. 

_“Unrepetant bastard.”_

_“Probably doesn’t even regret it.”_

_“Plotting something.”_

_“Not even upset.”_

_“Decepticon.”_

_“Glitched.”_

_“Menace.”_

He spent a lot of time avoiding the rest of them. Mostly by sitting in his room. Reading, writing, thinking. Dealing with catastrophes as they came, working with Rodimus and Magnus for his duty cycle and then retreating, carefully, to his room to let himself relax a hair in peace. 

And then, mid-disaster, Ravage appeared.

Finally, someone Megatron could trust! For the first time in a long time, the constant fear eased up for a moment. 

Ravage at first made no comment—but that made sense. They were dealing with, of course, a catastrophe. Personal matters would wait for the crisis to be dealt with. They weren’t Autobots, after all.

Or…Megatron was, but the little voice in his processor that liked to point out hard truths insisted that he clearly wasn’t a _real_ Autobot. And he still knew how to put his own feelings behind him and focus on the mission at hand. As did Ravage.

But then the problem was dealt with. The second Lost Light was vanquished. The catastrophe ended. And Ravage followed Megatron aboard the Lost Light again…and then both of them were fielding constant aggression from every direction. Ravage took it as his due, growled at the worst offenders, and retaliated in kind when pushed. 

Megatron kept his shoulders down, and if he let his head cant ever so slightly to the right, it didn’t matter much. 

But he wasn’t alone on a ship full of no one but strangers any more. 

Ravage noticed. 

And one night, in the relative safety of Megatron’s hab, he pushed Megatron’s datapad out of the way and sat down in front of Megatron, waiting, and carefully asked, “What are you so afraid of?”

Megatron could see no reason to lie. 

For that, he was a fool. 

The next duty cycle, he strode onto the bridge as usual, and just as always all conversation stopped when he set foot in the room. And then Rodimus turned to face him, a gleam in his blue eyes, and Megatron had a moment of absolute trepidation. That was never good news. 

“Frag, it’s even _true_ , isn’t it?” Rodimus said. 

“What?”

“You _are_. Oh, that’s so weird.”

“What are you _talking_ about, Rodimus?”

“You’re actually— _you_ , you’re actually afraid of me! _You!_ ”

Instantly, every eye in the room turned to stare at the two of them. Megatron froze. “What?”

“Oh, that’s too good. You’re even doing the head thing now.”

It felt like the walls were closing in around him. “What?” he repeated again. 

“Magnus said it was probably a trick, but Primus, your _face,”_ Rodimus said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this confused.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Megatron insisted. 

“Your little heart to heart with Ravage,” Rodimus said. 

“You _spy_ on me?” Megatron said, and let anger color his voice to hide the cold burst that traveled down his backstruts. 

“Of course,” Rodimus said. “You’re Megatron. You had to know.”

“Right,” he muttered. He hadn’t known that. It made sense, but… he hadn’t known that. “I still don’t know what you’re _talking about_.”

“The head thing,” Rodimus said. “Come _on_ , Megs—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—I know you know what I’m talking about.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“It’s the little head thing you do,” Rodimus said, and the smirk playing at his lips was looking more and more predatory. Distantly, Megatron could feel his hands curling into fists. He straightened his head instantly, and then realiezd that would only make it more obvious, frag, _frag_. 

“I’m _not,”_ he insisted, “doing anything.”

Rodimus smirked. 

Megatron suffered through an entire duty cycle; he was a Decepticon, and he knew how to put his feelings behind him to achieve a goal. He denied any and all of the snippy little gloating comments Rodimus made. He pretended it wasn’t bothering him. 

And then he went back to his hab.

And he learned.


End file.
